


A Pseudonym To Fool Him

by Lunarium



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M, Love Letters, Rekindling a romance, Some Humor, remembering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-21 17:25:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15562761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunarium/pseuds/Lunarium
Summary: She wished to test her husband, and she knew exactly what to do.





	A Pseudonym To Fool Him

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Come Back For Me: A Zaggar Zine 2018](https://galrashipzine.tumblr.com/post/175436754042/its-finally-here-70-pages-of-high-quality)! This was so much fun to be part of! :D 
> 
> This fic and title was based on Kate Bush's song "[Babooshka](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xckBwPdo1c)" because I adore this song, and imagining the events unfolding with Haggar and Zarkon was too perfect to pass up.
> 
> And many thanks to Rox for the beta-read! :D <3

Zarkon sat back on his proper throne, as well as ever. Quintessence pumped into his veins through a specially-designed suit. Haggar had exerted every last drop of her magic to bring him back. While he had been healing just fine, she expedited the process after the series of his memories had filled her mind. 

As she was momentarily not needed by his side, she took to pacing in her private quarters to mull over the memories she had perceived in her husband. 

_Her husband._ The words felt foreign and ancient on her tongue, a shadow, memories obscured through layers of fog. But she was once a woman he loved—and perhaps still loved—and she was known by another name: Honerva. She was Altean. Her face was the terrain of Altean soil and the marks on her cheek like rounded checks rather than the sharp jagged lines down her sunken face. 

In his eyes, she was beautiful. Her eyes twinkled with all the curiosity of the universe before her. Passion for living and for life itself contained in her every step. 

That was she, before the world turned cold. Before the tears. The many miscarriages. Her challenge to the ancients and the gods that she would birth his and her child even if it was her final mad act. The obsession. The everlasting promise contained in a tiny sub-particle source she had dedicated her every breath researching. 

Had Zarkon held on in grief for a wife he had lost long before taking her to the Rift? 

She peered at herself in the mirror, taking in the long strands of white hair and the blue-violet skin. The eyes which shone only yellow. The red jagged marks that ran down her cheeks. The Alteans can will their forms to change shape, yet she could not will herself. With practice, she could regain that ability. But she closed her eyes and willed her reflection’s features to change for her, melding into the young smiling woman of Zarkon’s memories.

Opening her eyes again, it was to find the younger woman staring back at her. 

The first reaction was revulsion, hatred, a need to reach her arms in and strangle the Altean. 

_I was this woman_ , Haggar told herself. _I was beautiful. Ambitious but full of hope._

And would Lord Zarkon remember her? Did he realize who Haggar was, or had he been secretly lamenting the death of his wife all this time? 

Lotor. Lotor must have come from their union—a successful pregnancy carried to full term. But she could not remember the moment when her own child, the child Honerva had wept bitterly for and begged the absent ancients to give to her, was brought into this world. 

And what of her husband? Acknowledge though he did of the child, he seldom did mention him with affection to Haggar. 

Perhaps because he did not know Haggar was once his wife. Perhaps he was ashamed of what she had become. Or he did not think she remembered. Or did not wish to remind her of all the years she had suffered.

She could find out. She would derive an answer from him. Her past’s suffering was not even a shadow of memory by now. All that remained was a curiosity to reach out and taste again what that young woman had once known. 

The eyes of the woman before her lit up as a new scheme whirled in her mind. With a wave of her hand, the image disappeared, and the blue-violet familiar face stared back at Haggar. She had already made her choice. 

She wished to test her husband, and she knew exactly what to do.

*

“My lord? A personal message has come for you.”

Zarkon turned towards the guard. “Add it to the pile.” 

“I’m afraid this is not of a professional matter, sire. It uses the seal that the late King Alfor once used.” 

The Galra emperor frowned. “Bring it to my private quarters.” 

He retreated to his quarters a little later. It was not often Zarkon would receive a letter addressed personally to him in such manner. It had better not be a joke, or he would have the guard or rebel’s head cut off immediately. 

The letter had been placed on his desk. All of the official reports and requests for to his attention were always conducted orally, delivered by a messenger or one of the high guards. He had not received such a letter in so long, he almost ripped the letter in half after picking it up. 

He tore the top with a sharp claw and retrieved the note. Immediately he was hit with a scent that tugged him back through eons. Momentarily discombobulated, feeling as though he stood on another planet, during a time long past. 

He read the note. 

“ _H_ ,” he said under his breath. “ _H_ …” The corners of his lips curled, and he folded the letter back neatly.

*

Haggar watched his door until he reappeared. Though a mask obscured his face, she could still easily read his emotions from his quintessence. And the moment he stepped out of his rooms, she was taken aback. He had received her message, all right. And received it with a strange delight.

“Sire,” she said as she willed her heart to stop racing like the fluttering wings of a panicked zutterfly. “You seem quite taken with something.” 

Zarkon regarded her for a quick moment before offering a bow of his head. 

“I have received some pleasant news,” he said. 

“Is it tidings of the Paladins or the Princess?” She knew what it was, _but_. Just keeping things cool—(cool. When was the last time she used such language? When was the last time her heart pounded like some silly university student? How long was it since their first date?)

The sound which left his lips contained mirth and amusement. “Better.” 

_I have never felt more alive_ , spoke his mind, and Haggar’s heart nearly collapsed as if Zarkon himself clenched it in his fist. 

She bowed formally for him, and he passed her by. 

When she was sure he was gone, her hands flew up to her chest. The gush of energy flowing through her was greater than anything she had ever felt, greater than any surge of quintessence. 

Alive. She too had never felt so alive.

*

_My lord,_

_I have become enthralled by your enchanting demeanor. I have been watching you for many a cycle, and I have found you a constant presence in my thoughts as of late. I cannot pluck you out of my dreams. You have occupied my very core as dark matter is to existence of space itself, as quintessence is to life itself._

_I wish to familiarize myself more with your personal presence, if you would have me._

_Vrepit Sa and Ever Yours,_

_~H_

*

She studied her face in the reflection. She conjured up the mirror herself, as she seldom had need for them (after ten thousand years, her face was ever the same).

But she wanted to try something. Zarkon loved the letters from H. She could see how each new letter improved his mood. They filled him with vitality. His obsession with the Black Lion finally broke as a new thought took hold of him: a new lover, an old flame. 

She did not know if he ever thought about her when he read those letters. Was she at the forefront of his memories or buried deep in his subconscious? Was H drawing out the feelings he had once felt but could not recall? Was he falling in love with someone else? Somehow those thoughts were blocked from her, and they both frustrated and thrilled her. 

She turned back to her reflection. Her skin was once like the russet earth of the beautiful plateaus of her homecounty in Altea. Her eyes glowed amber and warm with her smile. Her eyes flashed yellow through the reflection. Pressing her fingers to her cheeks, she focused on her image until she felt a tingling as if the color drained from her body. The violet seeped into the area where she pressed onto her cheeks. She blinked, and the vivid yellow eyes turned into normal Altean ones, amber, wide-eyed as if scared, but her. 

The marks on her face remained the same. She would have to work to shift their look. But at that moment there was a shuffle of boots behind her, and the color seeped back through her face. She threw the hood over her head and turned to speak with one of the druids.

*

What an enchanting lady, Zarkon thought as he traced the neat handwriting that made up H’s letter. She reminded him so much of another, of his little lady from once upon a time. But that was before all the years had dragged the beauty from her, leaving behind a worn and weary ghost whose only obsession was quintessence. He loved her still. He wished she still was by his side as the way things were.

And she still was, but she was no longer the Honerva he had first met in the Galran laboratory, the smiling alchemist with the peculiar little creature she called Kova with affection. The eyes which glowed golden under the fluorescents and the bright flashes of letters flashing through the computer screens. 

He turned back to the letter and smiled. 

A tiny fear within him warned of an imposter, of someone within the empire plotting for his demise. But the letters were scented, and if it weren’t for the words, then it was the scent alone which transported him ten thousand years back, more instantaneous than any travel through wormholes at hyperspeed.

*

She wished to take the matter further. They had exchanged plans. She let him set the time and place for them to meet, especially when it became apparent he had his reservations, as she should have anticipated. He would, of course, become suspicious of a mysterious woman in the empire seeking intimacy with him. She was foolish to be so bold with her pseudonym.

His every step was not lost to her sharp eyes since the first letter. Zarkon had long since stopped reading them in private but out in the open, atop his mighty throne when there were no commanders or guards to report of any new activities. With each new letter he slipped farther into falling for H. 

She did not know if he was thinking about her, or of Honerva, or falling for the incognito. But this would be the only chance she’d get to tasting his lips once more. Before the mirror she practiced putting on the disguise until she could hold the mask as long as she needed to.

*

The dining hall hadn’t been used in many centuries. Haggar herself had forgotten when the last time they had dined here, who their guests were, and what the occasion was. Zarkon had chosen it for its proximity to the closest guards station. Any funny business, and they would shoot her down. Not that she blamed him for his caution. They have been betrayed by close friends before.

Options for wear were not plentiful for her, and it was only by chance that Ladnok had heard of her little predicament and offered her something from her younger sister’s closet. 

Haggar tugged around the collar. If anything drew attention to her age, it was this. The dress was clearly designed and intended to be worn by a younger generation, for dancing and merry-making. Her forearms and collarbones were not areas she was used to exposing to the world. The clothes hung over her thinning frame. But it would do for now. 

The double doors of the hall opened, and she spun around in time to see Zarkon appear. For a moment they simply locked eyes. She could perceive his thoughts— _“Just like my little lady”_ —and she smiled, without revealing her fangs, as brightly as she could recall her younger self once could. The corners of her mouth ached. 

“My lord,” Haggar said in a voice one notch higher than normal. “I have longed for the day when I would see you alone.” 

Zarkon paused, and something stirred in his quintessence. Had she offended him, or was that amusement she detected? 

Suddenly he marched up to her and lifted her off her feet. 

“I’m all yours, my wife, my Haggar, my Honerva!” he declared as he discarded his mask. And in a flash Haggar’s disguise shattered as he swept in to kiss her.


End file.
